Blue is the Color of Her Hair
by Coralfly
Summary: Past, present and future collide when Rory dyes her hair and heads to NYC. Set around S2. Rory centric fic with various pairings. [Complete]


**Title:** Blue is the Color of Her Hair

**Disclaimer:** The characters of Tristan DuGrey, Rory Gilmore, Jess Mariano, Logan Huntzberger, Lorelai Gilmore, Colin, Finn and others do not belong to me. They are the property of the WB, Amy Sherman-Palladino and affiliates.

**Rating:** R

**Pairing:** mainly Rory/Tristan, Logan/Tristan, cursory Rory/Dean, implied Rory/Jess, implied Rory/Logan

**Spoilers:** Everything up to episode 5.18 – "To Live and Let Diorama"

**Dedication:** To two pesky insects - Bug and B - this is the fic of contrition!

**Timeline:** This was initially written to be set around season 2 and to act as a filler in between episodes. It still is set around season 2 and I've tried to keep it in line with canon timeline. However, it now acts as an alternate history and so placing and positioning of things may be a little skewed and different.

**Author's Note:** Initially I wasn't going to post this on and some of you may recognize this from a long time ago on my LJ (although it is now somewhat revised and complete) but this is ridiculously long for a livejournal entry. And yes, I'm still alive, and for those who have read Chronicling Babylon: It will be finished, but not quite now.

* * *

**Blue is the Color of Her Hair**

Rory Gilmore, blue, blue, blue and more blue. Everything about her blue: her eyes, her clothes, and now her hair. She watched the dye whirling in the sink. Swirl of color and it was like the blossoming roses on the tiles of the bathroom wall. White and azure, flash of color, blending together to be precise. Azure colored tiles that her mom had said were pretty and created a sense of tranquility. In the bathroom. But her hair streaked blue was anything but peaceful and, God, so many people would freak and the whole town of Stars Hollow would talk.

Water gushed from the tap. A trail of blue fading into the drain. She snapped the latex gloves off and carelessly threw them into the nearby rubbish bin before rinsing her hands. Mentally Rory began to compile a list of the people who would hate her new hair and what they would say: her grandparents, Luke, Mrs Kim, Taylor, Dean and, of course, her mom. Actually, Lorelai might like it, but she would hate that the change had been made without her consultation. Because everything Rory did needed Lorelai's approval. And Rory hated that part of herself. Hated herself for needing.

Her hand swept matted hair. Staining forehead in an imprint of fingers. And she had to wash and scrub and rub to rid herself of the mark. She liked the blue, blue girl that stared back at her in the mirror though. She flicked on the hairdryer; the rush of hot air billowing strands until they fanned and fell in soft framing waves of blue around her face. And Rory angled her head and leaned closer into the glass to inspect herself. Liked what she saw. Really liked that she could claim the girl in the mirror as her own. Moreso, because Lorelai had never dyed her hair. Outside the walls of the bathroom and her mother was calling her.

"Rory! O daughter of mine! Five hours in the bathroom should be long enough to transform that beautiful face of yours into an ugly, staid Chilton student," her mother, Lorelai Gilmore, yelled.

"Coming, mom! And it hasn't been five hours!" she yelled back.

Exasperation slipped out of Rory's mouth coloring those eight words with grey-blue. Like stormy clouds. And if the bathroom window was big enough, she would be crawling out of the house right now. Making her Great Escape. But the window was too small. Instead she creaked the door open and peeked out to see her mother in the living room, preening in front of the television.

(The Other: woman with long brown hair and dancing blue eyes gazing in the mirror.)

Jolt of familiarity coursed through Rory as she recalled her own recent actions. It was an inbred mimicry of position and stance, passed on through the generations – the arch of back, the tilt of head. But Rory's eyes were colder, more analytical. And hair…hair was blue. Now, she took a step back, away from the door, as if to deny the connection. Still, Lorelai's absorption with her reflection in the television screen was the opportunity Rory had been waiting for. So she took a breath, then two steps forward, toes to the floor as she attempted to duck out.

But the wooden floorboard gave her away. Traitorous squeak.

Quickly Rory jumped back in, quickly closing the door before her mother turned around. Narrow Escape. But Rory was inside the safety of the bathroom now. Body heavily pressed against back of door. Heart thump, thump, thumping. Still, she ventured another peek at her mother. And then Rory allowed a retort to escape her lips (the witty banter return that her mother was expecting): "Are you saying that I look ugly in my uniform?"

"I thought you'd come out already, but obviously you're still hiding in that bathroom of ours. You're getting awfully vain. Not that you don't have reason to be. And I would never call you ugly. Because you're stunning, lovely, comely not homely. Like me! After all, you are your mother's daughter," Lorelai replied, pausing to preen once more in the blank screen of the television.

"Anyways, that's beside the point, we're late and while I'm all for us being late – in fact I highly approve of lateness because punctuality is really overrated – we can't be late today. Well, actually we can be late. I mean it is possible to be late but we may not."

Rory barely registered Lorelai's voice. It was like a faint buzzing, a distant constant noise reeking of familiarity and old her. She contemplated the window again but it was really too small. Much more than a tight, tight squeeze. Unfortunately an impossible avenue of escape. Rory sighed. And behind the thick wood (was it oak? not that it really mattered; only that it was strong sturdy stuff) of their bathroom door, her mother was still rambling on.

"Wait, that doesn't sound right either because then it sounds like we need permission from someone to be late and we don't. Actually, you may need permission from Headmaster Charleston and from me. Although I would give you permission and I might be able to wing permission from El Douche. So theoretically we may also be late but we shouldn't. Ah ha! That's the word I was looking for: shouldn't. Should not. We should not be late. And if we're going to go to Luke's, you'll need to get out of the bathroom some time this century. Preferably sometime during this decade."

Rory took another deep breath. Lungs heaving. Feet twitching, muscles contracting and she pulled herself upright. Chemical courage in blue. Her hand caressed the doorknob and turned it.

"I'm out, mom. But you should go ahead without me anyway. I think I'm going to bypass Luke's today," Rory stated as she walked out of the bathroom (her walk was surprisingly steady and slow) and into her room to grab her school bag.

"Bypass Luke's? B-but that means bypassing coffee!" Lorelai protested as she rummaged through her purse looking for her car keys.

"I know," Rory calmly replied as she stood a few feet away, watching her mother's frantic motions. And Rory was waiting. Back: stiff and straight. Feet: resolute and firmly in place. Waiting.

"I take it back! You're no daughter of mine unless you're sick. Are you sick? You don't sound sick but I think you must be. Ah ha! Found them!" Triumphantly Lorelai grabbed the wayward set of keys and waved them about as she announced: "I knew they were in there, hiding somewhere. Now child, let mommy feel your forehead." Lorelai deftly whirled around, intent on checking her daughter's temperature, only to halt suddenly and jerk back. "Your hair! Y-y-your hair is! Your hair is…_blue_!"

"I know, mom."

"Your hair is blue! Blue like the sky!" Lorelai bounded forward, pouncing on her daughter to inspect her hair. "Blue like pie! Well the blueberry kind! Blue like the ocean, blue like the sea! Blue like- like-"

"I know, mom. My hair is blue," she repeated. "Now are you going to stand there all day and see how many similes and rhymes you can conjure up to describe the color of my hair?"

"B-b-but your hair is blue! Why didn't you tell me you were going to dye it? Blue! Your hair is blue!"

"Mom, aren't you late?" Rory said pointedly.

"Yes, yes but never mind the coffee. I can get some at the Inn. I want to talk about the blueness of your hair."

"Well, I'd love to stand here and discuss it but I'm late," she said, at which Rory hurried out the door.

"You're not evading my questions, missy! I'm on to you! I know where you live!" Lorelai shouted after her.

"I'm not avoiding, mom. We'll talk later. I promise!" Rory gave a quick wave and plastered an extra cheerful smile on her, while inwardly relieved that her mother had not been her more persistent self. Too flabbergasted and shocked and Lorelai's recovery too slow that Rory had managed to get out before she got caught in an interrogation. She then made a pretense of walking the same tired route to the bus stop until she was assuredly out of Lorelai's sight. Then she ducked into a nearby alley, the appointed meeting place, where a car and Jess Mariano were waiting for her, with a paper takeaway cup filled with Luke's coffee. She grabbed it gratefully and downed the contents in five big gulps.

"You're late," he pointed out when she had finished with her coffee.

"Sorry, it took me longer to get away then I expected. I had to explain to mom that there would be no going to Luke's this morning for coffee and-"

"Hey, no biggie," he paused, looking her up and down, before speaking again, "Your hair…it's blue."

"Yeah, I dyed it."

"Huh, it's different," he stared at her, contemplating Rory's new look.

Rory frowned a little, unsure of what Jess' point was but feeling that his opinion somehow mattered. "Well, that was the point. To look different."

"I like it." A small, delighted but shy smile crept up on Rory's face at Jess' words. "Plus, I think Dean will hate it. Which makes me like it even more."

Now she was smiling outright, rolling her eyes (because it seemed to be the thing to do) at Jess' snide customary comments. "You don't know that Dean will hate it," she made a lackluster attempt to defend.

"It's different. He hates anything different. He likes everything in those nice boxes of his, which he can stack. Maybe it comes with working at Doose's Market. Nah, it's just Dean."

Rory couldn't really refute the logic underneath Jess' mocking and so she settled on saying, "Could you just like not with Dean? A-and you still don't know that he'll hate it."

"Did your mother like it?"

"I think she was still stuck on the 'your hair is blue' part."

"She hated it," Jess confirmed.

"No. No. It's just that it'll take her some time to get used to it."

"Yeah, well that's the way it is with this town. Anything different takes forever to get used to. And it has to met with the approval of Taylor."

"He's not that bad. Okay, so he is but-"

"It's all about not making a ripple in Stars Hollow."

"People just like things being a certain way. They get used to things being a certain way."

"I thought today was about embracing change? I thought you were sick of everything being a certain way?"

"I am." Rory said before reiterating more forcefully, "I am."

"Then, why are we standing here debating? Let's go."

She literally hopped into Jess' car, throwing her school bag into the back seat, with a feeling of trepidation and anticipation fluttering in her stomach.

* * *

There was something about being on the open road, about an ever changing horizon and the possibility of going anywhere. There was also something – an indefinable sensation – about doing the wrong thing. It was thrilling; her whole body was tingling. Rory knew she shouldn't be in this car with Jess. Actually, right now, she should have been in class, where Mr Everett would be taking the roll. Only there would be an empty silence when her name was called. The silence would reflect the lonely unclaimed wooden chair that Mr Everett would look up and see. Then he would take out his big red pen and mark a cross against her name.

Oh geez.

Red mark against her name.

Big fat red cross.

And what was she doing here? What was she thinking? If she made Jess turn around maybe the car could speed fast enough…and then Rory looked at Jess. He had the faintest trace of a smile and he seemed happy. He was here, with her, and he was happy. Decisively she squashed the creeping beginnings of something old like panic by hitting hard the buttons in the car until music blared away. Rory pushed away all thoughts and instead concentrated on the thrumming of Jess' fingers against the steering wheel and the unnerving comfort of his presence. His body, thin and wiry and such much smaller than Dean's, was a bundle of intensity, with his dark brows furrowed to the edges as if in the motion of butterfly-catching a profound thought.

Rory wanted to thank him for doing this, for being here but the words died on her lips. Maybe because she didn't quite know what '_this_' was. Did not quite grasp the essence of being here – only that she was a bundle of giddy nerves, body itching with the escape. The freedom was making her heady and she wound the window down, relishing the blast of air that hit her face.

"You okay there?" Jess queried, stealing a quick glance at Rory before turning his concentration back on the road.

"Yeah. I'm good."

"You're just a little…quiet."

"I like the quiet. It's peaceful and nice. I like the fact that we can just sit here and not talk. And I like sitting here and just absorbing everything. It should be sensory overload but it's not. I mean, the way the air gusts through the window and brushes past your face, the music, the scenery, the road, the car, oohh! and the way you tap your fingers against the steering wheel with no rhyme or reason."

"So no regrets?"

Rory shook her head, "No. No regrets. You?"

Jess chuckled, "Do you not know me at all? Any excuse to get out of Stars Hollow…"

"It's not that bad, you know."

"And here we go again," he rolled his eyes.

"Argh! I can't speak to you!" Dramatically she crossed her arms and turned far away, as possible, from Jess.

"Look, I'm just saying that you have your opinion and I have mine."

"And your opinion is naturally superior?"

"Of course…hey! I was just kidding. All I'm saying is that there are some things we will never agree on. Like Stars Hollow. And Dean."

"I just wish that you would give things a go for once. I mean I know Stars Hollow is small and kooky and-"

"Kooky? That's an understatement. The whole town is certifiable."

Ignoring Jess, Rory continued her speech: "And I understand that there's all these rituals and quirks that seem insane and quirky but the people are nice. They might surprise you if you'd just forgo that 'bad boy', 'I don't care about the world' routine. You might even find that you like them if you give them a try."

"Well, I don't know, Rory. Dean doesn't seem like my type, and are you sure you won't get jealous if we get intimate?"

"You are just so…so impossible," Rory exclaimed in exasperation and defeat. She huffed a little even as her lips twitched and she suppressed the urge to run her fingers through his dark windswept hair.

"Infuriating too," he grinned cockily, "or so I've been told."

"Could you just like shut up and drive, Jess?" she snapped, but Rory wondered who she felt more short with: Jess or herself, for giving up on Stars Hollow and Dean too easily. When it came to Dean, there was a spider web of questions that she still wasn't quite prepared to deal with. Instead, Rory thought as she rushed a hand through her hair, I dye my hair blue and run away.

Too many questions to get tangled in, indeed.

So Rory shifted and angled her body towards the window and watched as the trees and bricks of suburbia faded into the throng of the interstate highway. Silence lay in the car between Rory and Jess. And she concentrated on the flash of cars passing them by and the stretch of highway that never seemed to end.

"Back to the quiet thing, huh?" Jess asked, but his tone was light and with that any sharp words exchanged had been dismissed.

A smile quirked involuntarily across her face and Rory shook her head, knowing that she had given in to Jess way too easily. And yet it was impossible to stay mad at him or entirely fault his reasoning, because in some ways he was right and in some ways she could completely understand exactly where he was coming from.

She couldn't quite place when Stars Hollows had become a little stifling. The expectations of everyone (even herself) and the dictates of the small town were becoming frequently restraining; manacles for a prison of being. Nor could Rory explain when the arm around her waist, Dean's arm, had started to grip a little tighter than usual. In Dean's arms she still felt safe, comfortable and loved but more often than not Rory would get this inexplicable urge to wiggle out of his embrace, a constant bout of claustrophobia.

Sometimes it felt like their relationship had been pressed into a perpetual hold. Paused. And they couldn't play, fast forward or rewind. They were the tiny dots of pixels that made up an image of Rory and Dean standing on the street with a wide gap of black bitumen between them. Cars, bicycles, people, life zoomed by them and Rory's knees and elbows were bent and braced in the still motion of running. If she ran fast and far enough, maybe she could catch up to the world. But Dean lagged behind. With eyes of love – although nowadays love seemed to be another word for resentment and hate – he tied her back. With a string of a relationship that was fraying apart.

Rory called Dean her boyfriend and wondered…

Each day, Rory worried that the connection between Rory and Dean grew more blurry, more fuzzy and the tiny dots of pixels of their image were dissolving. Rory was dissolving.

Each day, Rory silently worried that she was becoming the girl of her dreams before she had ever really had a chance to dream.

Each day, Rory worried that she was losing herself to the girl in the mirror.

"So, I'm thinking of New York," stated Jess.

"What?"

"New York: City of the Damned. Or is that some other city? Although, I'm thinking it is a proper appropriation for any city in the world."

"What about New York?"

"It's a good place to get lost. Lots of crowds; it's easy to lose yourself amongst the hordes of other aimless, wandering souls. Every morning you wake up to the song of the city: the song of failure. The city resonates to the wailing notes, y'know. There are false prophets with their cardboard signs promising salvation and redemption, others speak of a nearing doomsday but you know they lie because the apocalypse has come and gone. Some say the city is a living hell but they're wrong too. It's that nether realm of in-between; no heaven, no hell but something of a vast, endless nothing. A populated desert of spirits dehydrating, but nothing can quench their thirst. It's a beautiful place in its own way; I was born and brought up there. New York, it's home. It's where we're heading."

* * *

New York City or more correctly Manhattan was exactly as Rory had remembered it to be. Only it was different too. Perhaps, because she had only ever been there with her mother. The buildings in various degrees all reached out to the heavens, confident in their own superiority. While the sky itself was pale and white with only the faint, illusionary tinge of blue. From either horizons – to her north, south, east and west – the streets were littered with an incomprehensible number of people and cars. And through the sizable vents, below her feet, large gusts of steam emanated, billowing in the air and surrounding her. She supposed that they were part of the ventilation system for the subway because the cloud of white carried with it a flavor of metal and grime. Not to mention that her feet could sense the intermittent rumble and shaking of concrete, which gave her an uneasy feeling that the world could crumble and overturn at any moment.

Everything and everyone seemed to be moving – constantly moving – and nothing was ever static. She was jostled and shoved and pushed by the faceless, and instinctively she grabbed Jess' hand as an anchor of safety and the known. There were signs everywhere telling you to stop and go, or inviting you to consume whatever magic they were selling today.

She continued walking and while the landscape subtly changed she had no tangible idea where she was; street names were just letters directing her to another unknowable point in space. If Rory had been wearing her sparkly, red shoes she might have tapped them together and wished herself home. Instead all she had was a hand that was slipping away as a man in a business suit cut through, followed by a mother scolding her children, a couple of tourists, some school kids, an elderly couple and then more business men and women.

Against her own volition, Rory had been pushed backwards, forwards, left and right. And before she realized what was happening, Jess' hand and Jess had disappeared. She was left standing on an unfamiliar street, disorientated and overwhelmed. Her stomach churned and she couldn't think except to remind herself to stay calm and not to panic. All she had to do was continue standing exactly where she was; if she stayed in one spot then Jess would obviously backtrack and eventually find her here. Unless he expected her to find him, but that didn't make sense. He didn't have a cell so she couldn't call him. However he had her cell number and when he realized they had been separated Jess would go to the nearest payphone and call her. All she had to do was wait for his call. But in the meantime, the best thing to do was stay put.

The time ticked by either slowly or quickly, Rory couldn't decide, but there was no sign of Jess. From her standing position on the street, she had begun to observe the various people, and the faceless, if only temporarily, began to grow faces and made up names and lives.

There was staid Roger with immaculately neat hair, gelled and combed to the left. He was a determined, unnatural dancer on the dance floor of Fifth Avenue at Forty-Fourth Street; for the whole city seemed to be dancing to a noiseless tune, that song of failure that Jess had spoken of. Roger performed an intricate dance of two steps forward, three steps back and one step to the right; always changing dance partners and occasionally thrusting his arm out and twirling around. He seemed frustrated by his inability to move fluidly like the other dancers and eventually feeling that his inelegance would be the death of him, hailed a yellow cab to drive him away from the dance floor.

Next there was Tara who was a little fierce-looking and was a woman on a mission. She marched across the street, pausing only now and then to confirm her bearings. Most likely she was a secret agent operative and that small, black, compact suitcase she rolled behind her was filled with papers detailing government secrets. Her hair swished as she strode through the parting sea of people. She was tiny but she left behind her such an impression that people incorrectly recalled several extra inches to her height.

Then there was Timmy; a young boy of four whose eyes were permanently wielded wide open. He seemed to absorb his environment around him, in awe of the tallness and largeness of every single thing; if he could, he would have touched and tasted the lamp posts, the candy-colored lights, the glass, the people, the cars and the road. Only, his mother, Sylvia, grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him away, and later his father, Robin, heaved him up to his chest and suddenly everything was out of reach for Timmy.

Eventually sore feet, boredom and complacency overcame Rory. She found herself wandering, first across the street, then down one block although she always returned to her initial starting point. The buildings became distinct and individualised; markers providing her with some sense of place and positioning. Her tentative exploration broadened until she had become familiarised and submerged in the terrain. She no longer fought the chaos but floated and drifted aimlessly in the ocean of Manhattan until Thelxepeia – the green siren of 600 Fifth Avenue – lured Rory into her cavern.

* * *

The cavern was actually a smaller but still spacious Barnes & Noble with a comfortable looking floor. And it was on the floor, leaning against a shelf, legs crossed and hands holding a book that Rory sat reading.

She would have happily stayed there all day in a happy bubble of oblivion. The world around her faded and then disappeared and she was transported to another dimension of the writer's choosing. Thus it took the snatching of her book away for Rory to notice the impatient, tapping feet before her.

"Hey, I was reading that!"

"Hey, you're in my way," he mimicked.

"You could have just asked me to move like a normal person!"

"I did. Several times." The voice was vaguely familiar and Rory craned her neck and squinted, trying to get a look at the guy but all she could distinguish was a general tallness and…blonde hair? "But you were overly wrapped up in your book as per usual," he continued.

"Do I know you?"

"Does anyone ever really know anyone?"

It was extremely infuriating how the familiar stranger was deliberately being mysterious and his voice bugged Rory to no end because there was something in his inflection and the tone…if only she could grasp his identity. After all would she forget someone so incredibly annoying? And then memories bombarded and with this odd gut feeling Rory guessed, "_Tristan_?"

"Give the girl a prize!"

"What are you doing in New York?"

"I could be asking you the same question."

"Yes, but you're meant to be in North Carolina!"

"And you're meant to be in school, Miss Gilmore."

"So?" she challenged.

"I didn't think you had it in you to skip. Who knew you had a rebellious side? I'm really surprised and shocked."

"You know, those stereotypes are just old."

"Stereotypes?" Tristan queried.

"Yes, stereotypes," Rory confirmed. "Just because I study and get good grades and like to read books doesn't mean I'm some Miss Goody-Two Shoes. Because I can be rebellious. I can be bad. I've dyed my hair blue without my mother's approval. And I ditched school for New York. I've also drunk alcohol, well it was a sip of champagne at a wedding, but still, I'm under-age! Oooh…I've shoplifted and I, um, plan to smoke my first cigarette today."

"Well then, I applaud your venture. However might I add a word of advice? Cigarettes are bad for your health and it'll make your teeth yellow and your breath stink so I highly recommend forgoing the whole smoking thing," he said mildly with an impossibly straight face that somehow appeared mocking to Rory.

"You're making fun of me," she accused.

"No. I'm serious. There's plenty of scientific research to prove that cigarettes are bad for you. And yellow teeth are so off-putting when you want to kiss a girl."

"Gah! I hate you. Go away and give me my book back."

"Actually, I'd prefer it if _you_ go away."

"What?"

"Well, more like move. You're in my way, Rory."

"In your way? How so?" she challenged.

"Well, there are books behind you that I want," he offered.

"Oh." She stood up and started to move but stopped, narrowing her eyes as a thought occurred to her. "We're in the romance section, Tristan. There are only romance novels here. And you're a guy! Therefore you're lying. I am not blocking your way. So you can go."

"Actually you are in my way. And might I add who is stereotyping now? There's no rule stating that males can't read romance novels."

"Hah. Pull the other one."

"I'll have you know that I plan on a career as a romance novelist. I already have an idea for my first book. It'll be a New York Times best seller. It's about this girl from a small town. She's innocent and sweet and smart. A bookworm. I think I'm going to call her Mary. And she ends up going to this rich school where she falls for the charms of the popular, handsome, debonair…"

"In your dreams, Tristan."

"My imagination, actually. I have a great imagination. The sex scenes will be hot. And steamy. And raunchy. Yup, definitely a best seller."

"You," Rory stated as she jabbed her index finger into Tristan's chest, "don't have a romantic bone in you. And what you would be writing would be bad porn derived from that perverted imagination of yours."

"Now, now…I'm hurt at your hastily formed judgments about my writing. I assure that if I was writing porn it would be far from bad."

"You know, I'm only wasting breath talking to you."

"When you could obviously be doing better things with me that'll leave you breathless."

"Gah…just go away. Actually, I'll go away." Spinning on heels Rory proceeded to march away.

"You know, whatever you're feeling or whatever you're going through this isn't the answer," he stated to her departing back.

She stood extremely still, his words affecting her more than she expected, and without turning to face him retorted defiantly, "How would you know?"

"Because I've been there and done that and got sent to military school for it."

"I'm not you, Tristan."

"I know. You're better than that."

She whirred around, blue eyes flashing with pain and hurt and confusion. "You don't know that. You don't know anything about my life so don't presume to know whether or not I'm better than that or not. Because I'm not. Better than that. And there are things going on my life that you just wouldn't understand. And they may sound trite and trivial to you but they're not. You just wouldn't understand."

"So maybe you're not better than that. But you'll be surprised at the things in your life that I would understand. Just try me," he offered and his offer rang in clear, precise tones in her head.

"I-" Rory began but hesitated. Confession was apparently good for the soul but no one would ever mistake Tristan DuGrey for a priest or a rabbi or the Dalai Lama or a holy man of any religion. And yet when she looked into the blue depths of his eyes there was an inscrutable intensity, which entranced her. Compelled her to tell the story of her soul. She blinked and the brief break in contact gave her the strength to pull her gaze away. And by Fate or Lady Luck, her eyes happened on a familiar outline.

"Jess," she called and rushed over to the dark-haired boy hugging him tightly. "I thought I'd lost you. I'm not sure how it happened and I wasn't sure what to do. And then I spotted this Barnes and Noble and decided to wait here for your call. Which, by the way, why didn't you call?"

"Well, I was but I tried retracing my steps first. And when I noticed there was a bookstore nearby, I figured I might as well try there, or rather here, first before calling." Jess paused as he noticed the blonde lingering nearby, in familiar proximity to Rory. "Who's your friend?"

"My friend? Oh, you mean Tristan. He, uh, went to Chilton with me," Rory answered.

"Went? As in he doesn't anymore?" Jess asked.

"I'm impressed with your grasp of the fundamentals of English. Yes, it's 'went' as in he doesn't anymore," Tristan interceded, moving closer to the two. "I now have the privilege of attending military school in North Carolina."

"You're a little far away from North Carolina, aren't you?" Jess challenged.

"Like you aren't a little far from home," the blue-eyed boy retorted.

"So why are you in military school?"

"Broke into some safe."

"What? You rich types don't have enough money that you need to steal more?" Jess asked incredulously.

"No. Money wasn't the issue," Tristan rolled his eyes. "The safe belonged to a father of some acquaintance. And it was just something to do."

"Oh well. I get that," Jess' brown eyes were lit with a tinge of empathy and respect. "But you got caught. That must've sucked."

"Yeah, well it wasn't fun. But military school isn't bad. It's the same as Chilton. Only military. Really, it's all about the rules. So what's your deal? You're not Chilton material, that I know."

"No. Not Chilton. I'm Stars Hollow High."

"You're not friends with Dean?" Tristan asked warily with a hint of his old disdain.

Jess snorted, "Yeah right. Like I would be friends with that-"

"Hey. Hey! That's my boyfriend you're talking about," Rory interrupted. And wondered again about the meaning behind labels such as 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'.

"Still? And here I thought you were making improvements with Jess here – it is Jess, right?"

"I like you," Jess declared to Tristan. "So, you got any plans for today?"

"No. Not particularly."

"Great. Why don't you hang out with me and Rory?"

Before Rory could voice an objection (knowing that no good could come out of this) Tristan had already agreed and the two boys had exited Barnes & Noble, expecting her to follow. Rory sighed and, resigned to her fate, headed after them.

* * *

They seemed too different – Jess and Tristan. Rich and privileged seemed to seep out of Tristan: in his confident swagger; in the tiny neat stitches of his white shirt; in the delicate close shave of his hair that told the story that buzz cuts weren't always just buzz cuts. Whereas Jess was at the other end of the spectrum: his swagger edged with life wariness; his shirt faded and fraying and loosely held together by choppy stitches; his hair slightly long and the cut blunt and uneven with the haphazard snips of his own scissors. Knowing the two like Rory did – which really wasn't that well because there was so much of them that had been hidden from her due to time, circumstances and their own deliberate actions – she wasn't prepared for this painless comradeship. She had been expecting social snobbery and disdain (on both sides) and a great divide like pride and prejudice, and maybe there was. Yet today they fell into easy, amicable chatter.

Rory had never really hung out with boys before. Being with Dean was something separate because he was her boyfriend. Love interest? Someone she occasionally hung out with and kissed? And talking to Jess, back in Stars Hollow, was something literary and intimate. Nothing like this loud clash of boys with boys and she felt out of place and discordant. It wasn't like Jess and Tristan were talking about cars or girls or sports (she definitely had things to say on their subject matter of Plato and the creation of beds and tables); but rather it was the manner, the tone, and the rhythm in which they spoke. Boys with boys were jabs, and smirks, and smart-arsed comments; and sometimes it was like Rory wasn't even there. Except, Jess would occasionally nudge her in the side and Tristan would slip an arm around her waist and pull Rory along as they walked.

The day passed in a haze. She had followed Tristan and Jess, letting the boys navigate a landscape that was unfamiliar and yet oddly known. New York was not a forgotten memory but something other – terrifying and intimidating and hidden – that had always been a part of her. It was a world of swamp and gutter, decaying trash rotting away at your primary senses, until you reached the layers of a sixth, seventh and eight sense. The pull and tug of people on the streets became the thready pulse in which the soles and toes of Rory's feet followed the map back to Jess' old neighborhood. She passed too many office buildings and in the darkened hues of their unclean glass she caught a glimpse of glaring, overwhelming, bright blue: the other Rory reflected back at her. Her palms were too warm and sweaty as she clutched onto Tristan's and Jess' hands, as they lead the way, and she dared not let go.

Jess seemed to be a see-saw of contradiction wavering between laconic excitement and laconic despondency as he pointed out places of interest that marked his old territory:

"That's the corner shop we used to hang out during lunch and snag some smokes."

"Over there is Old Mrs Sebastian's apartment. She must be hundred and ninety, by now. She was nice enough, though. Used to bake me cookies when I was a kid. Loaned me books to read whenever I needed something to read."

"This is Tom's place. We used to be friends."

Eventually they found themselves in the concrete basketball courts of Jess' childhood. The basketball hoops were slightly crooked and the lines marking out the court were barely visible. Situated in a slightly vamped up vacant lot, surrounded by wire fencing and the heights of too many buildings, it seemed a sad little place to waste a youth away.

Jess walked up to the far end of the court where there was a gap in the wire fencing. A bush had overgrown, pushing through the gap in the fencing despite the restraints of wire and concrete. He rummaged in the bush before pulling out a basketball.

"Communal ball," he explained. "Some of the guys leave it here. You just have to be in the know. It's a little flat but it'll do. So rich boy, are you up for a game?"

Tristan shrugged his assent and ambled to the center of the court. Jess grinned in response, eyes bright and painful and hungry. To Rory, it seemed like this trip down memory lane had left Jess full of energy. His whole body seemed tense with a life screwed up and partially repressed (by the confines of Stars Hollow). And now, on his return, Jess was overflowing with an excess of pent up emotion to expend.

In the heat of the overhead afternoon sun, Rory watched Tristan and Jess engage in a game of basketball on the streets that gave birth to Jess Mariano. The ball spun in a dull whirr of orange as Tristan leapt forward snatching it out of the air. Sweat trickled down his frame and he had long since discarded the stiff white shirt he had initially been wearing. Rory tried not to think about military school and how Tristan seemed harder, with rough jagged edges of bone and muscle that could engulf her. She pressed her thighs together and tried not to think.

Tried not to think about boys and balls and the consequences of blue hair. Sitting on the warm concrete, Rory tried not to notice how Tristan was golden and glistening and light against the dark slenderness of Jess, as their bodies collided and they tussled for the ball. Tried not to watch the way their stomachs contracted, muscles tightening, ribs accentuated as they breathed in.

And she breathed out a gush of something…something that had been kept in the far edges of the periphery whenever Dean had placed fumbling awkward hands around her waist.

"So are you to up joining us in game, Rory?" Tristan asked as he called a halt to his and Jess' little one-on-one and jogged towards her.

As Tristan approached she noticed Jess at the further end of the court, watching them through the corner of his eyes. Waiting. Anticipating. And Rory squeezed her thighs more tightly together, tugged at the blue plaid of her Chilton skirt, and bit her lower lip as the shadow of Tristan was cast over her.

"I don't know," she answered, fingers twisting the ends of her hair. "I don't really know how and I'm not good at sports."

"It's just a game, Rory," Tristan said as his strong large firm hands pulled her up from the ground. She tumbled forward due to his action, crashing into bare chest as Tristan added, "You've got to learn to play, someday."

In the background, Jess tossed the ball with careful aim so that it made a thunk and a swoosh as orange hit the backboard and slipped through the basket. "Score," Jess cried, pumping his fist in the air before turning expectant eyes to Rory and Tristan. "So are we going to play or what?" he asked.

* * *

Around 8pm, eating hamburgers that couldn't rival Luke's but her teeth hitting the grind of doughy white bun, lettuce, onion and beef patty steadily, Rory imagined what her mother was doing at the moment. She barely heard the boys as they discussed a party Tristan knew of, that was taking place in the Plaza. After the game of basketball, Tristan had mentioned that an old friend was having a 'thing' that night, piquing Jess' interest.

"Yeah, I'm up for it. See if you rich boys party as hard and as fast as they all say you do," Jess had said.

Tristan had grinned – wolfish, sharp teeth sparkling – as he replied, "Lies. All lies, I tell you. The rumors have been greatly under exaggerated. We party harder, faster, looser. Rory, you'll probably want a change of clothes although the school girl look has always done wonders for you."

They had spent the rest of the afternoon with the boys tagging behind Rory as she went from shop to shop searching for cheap, suitable clothes to wear to the party. Her funds were limited but bargain hunting and a keen eye for sales were skills that Rory had honed during her formative years, with the guidance of her mother and Lane's company. A pair of jeans, a pink camisole, a plastic bag of make-up necessities and one pair of strappy black heels later, and the three of them hungrily hustled into the diner.

Only now as Tristan boasted about all the fun to be had in the Plaza and Jess munched on his fries, Rory could hardly imagine what she was doing here. Crazy impulse of the morning gone. And leaning against the hard plastic of her seat, Rory felt kinda tired and all she could think about was her mother: frantic and worried. She thumbed the cell in her school bag with one hand as the other grabbed her glass of Coke, swallowing the cost of this day in syrupy sweet sips.

Finally, with sugar stuck in her throat like bile, Rory stood up and said, "I have to go."

"The little girl's room is at the back," Tristan informed her, nodding in the direction.

"Okay, thanks," she said, studying Tristan for a moment but he had turned the other way and was now intent in his conversation with Jess. So Rory weaved the stretch of plastic chairs and tables until she reached a washed out grey door with a co-joined white circle, white triangle and four white angled lines that together denoted 'female'.

Little girl's room.

Little girl.

She wondered if Tristan meant anything by his choice of words. Had he seen something in her – blue eyes penetrating since the moment they had first met and the name 'Mary' uttered from his lips – that told the lie of blue, blue hair? And here she was in the bathroom fiddling with her cell phone; and fingers moving by their own volition, buttons pushed and her mother's voice on the other end.

"Rory? Is that you? Where are you?"

"Mom," she started to speak, although she could barely get the words out, "I'm just calling to tell you that I'm okay. Don't worry."

Lorelai's voice was furious and high, "Don't worry? Don't worry, she tells me, after I get a call from Headmaster Charleston in an intimidating voice demanding to know why my daughter was absent for the day. Of course, I'm worried. And what the hell are you thinking, missy? First with the blue hair and now skipping school. I don't know what the hell is going on with you but I want you and Jess back home, now."

The pang of uncertainty and guilt that had hit Rory earlier dissipated as she caught an image of herself in the mirror: blue hair limp, school shirt rumpled and sticky with the afternoon of basketball and shopping sweat, plaid skirt swinging around her legs, thigh high socks pulled up, black Mary-Jane shoes.

Such a school girl, still.

Such a little, little girl.

Rory moved the cell away from her ear and Lorelai's voice, though loud, seemed so far, far away, back in the once upon time of Stars Hollow.

"How do you know I'm with Jess?" Rory asked and now her voice was strong and firm, no longer lost by the sound of her mother.

"I'm not stupid, Rory," Lorelai snapped.

Lorelai's voice was not the only thing that snapped. Something pre-existing and unspoken between mother and daughter cracked – just a little – but the serrated edges of the gap were there.

"And I'm not stupid either, mom. I know what I'm doing. And I'll be fine. We'll both be fine. You can tell Luke that Jess and I will be back some time this weekend."

"Rory…" Lorelai started.

But she couldn't let her mother finish that sentence; wasn't ready to hear what the great independent Lorelai Gilmore who had run away from home and raised a kid at sixteen had to say. Still Rory's voice was soft when she said, "Trust me."

Then she hung up the phone.

Because there were promises implicit in those two little words.

Trust me.

Promises that Rory wasn't sure that she could always keep (and would today be the day she broke them?) especially when she darted into the toilet stall and donned heels too high, jeans too tight and camisole too low. When she emerged out the stall she stood in front of the mirror and began to paint away the picture of the little girl with each stroke of eyeliner. Heavily made up and Rory felt like this she was six, playing make-believe in a blue fairy costume, or ten in feather wings and asking, "Does anyone want to come to a caterpillar funeral?". Only this was real, more real than Rory had ever imagined, and maybe everything before had been the fairytale. Next, she turned the faucet, letting water run through her fingers before slicking back her blue hair until it was sleek, sophisticated and styled like the promise of this night in New York.

When she walked back to the table there was a sway in a hips that hadn't been there before. In fact, that sharp click and slide of heels against the linoleum floor revealed that Rory was not walking but strutting. Strutting back to the table. Hand on hip, head cocked, eyebrows raised, mouth twisted in a smirk she didn't know she owned and Rory asked Tristan and Jess, "So are you two ready to go?"

* * *

The party was nothing like Rory expected. An entire floor of the Plaza had been bought out for the specific purposes of this gathering. Teenagers spilled out of doors, piling in and out of the rooms, and they all greet Tristan by name, with keen eyes of recognition for someone who was known. For Rory it was almost like the grinding gears of a wound down grandfather clock, and she was a sophomore again, walking through the hallways of Chilton. Only she was older and different – strutting in too tight jeans, too low camisole, with too much make-up, and her arms curled around two boys – and this corridor was all plush carpets and marble gilded with gold.

Entering a room and it was: color brightness gaudy flashing music sound noise sweat heat skin against skin taste drink blue cosmopolitans pink jello shots martinis with little green olives and sensory overload. Her palms were warm and she clutched onto Tristan and Jess but they were already pulling away.

"Tristan! Excellent, you made it. It's always good to see you, mate," a slightly scrawny brown-haired boy whose body was just beginning to fill out greeted. "And you brought friends," the boy added turning to Rory and Jess. "Do I know you?"

"Nope, but this is Rory and the other is Jess," Tristan answered for them. "I hope you don't mind that I brought them along."

"Newcomers are always welcome, my friend," the boy replied, clasping Tristan on the shoulder. "Fresh blood for the hordes. Otherwise these parties get too incestuous and you know how Colin will complain."

"Incessantly," Tristan agreed. "So Finn, where is the nagging bastard, anyways?"

"Somewhere. Around. But enough with this chatter and more with the drinking," Finn proclaimed, grabbing a tray of jello shots from a passing server. He downed two in quick succession, handed two glasses to Tristan who followed suit, before passing the tray to Jess and Rory.

The tiny glass with its pink wobbly contents seemed cute and harmless enough. Still, Rory took twenty-three seconds to contemplate – watching first for Jess to swallow the drink – before carefully pressing the cold glass to her lips, tilting her head and relishing something more than a sip of champagne at a wedding. It was like instant headiness and she giggled a little from the unexpected high. She wobbled a little too (like the pink jelly she had just drunk) on her too high but very lovely strappy black heels and Tristan snaked an arm around her waist to steady her. She snatched another glass from the tray even as Jess spoke.

Jess spoke? Jess speaking? Jess was speaking: "These jello shots are all well and good, if not a little sissy."

"Sissy?" Finn sputtered as Tristan chuckled.

Jess shrugged, "Okay then, not sissy. But girly. When are you bringing out the hard stuff? The real liquor. I could use a stiff drink."

Rory wanted to say that she liked the jello shots and that they weren't girly. Or maybe they were just girly enough. Because today's feminism meant you could embrace your inner girliness while still asserting the rights and strengths of women. Only another boy had approached the group and had started speaking and it would be rude of Rory to interrupt.

This new boy – whom Tristan and Finn and Jess (how did Jess know him, already?) were calling Colin – was saying, "Finally, a person here with sense. I've been telling Finn, here, that his penchant for jello shots is a sure sign of his emasculation."

"Which would explain the nail polish he's currently wearing," Tristan added.

"No, that's because of my poor scarred psyche, remember?" Finn pouted.

"How can we forget?" Colin sniped. "But your cross-dressing father doesn't explain your lack of appreciation for good quality scotch. Because he has excellent taste in scotch. Now, Jess, if you follow me, I can lead you to some very nice bourbon. Or there's whiskey if you prefer."

Rory watched the disappearance of Jess and Colin through the tremors of pink colored glasses as she swallowed a third and fourth shot. She was eyeing a fifth shot when she noticed that Tristan and Finn had broken out of conversation so that Finn could chase after a blonde with a too short skirt and a great pair of legs. Licking her lips that tasted pink and sweet it dawned on Rory that alcohol with its delicious power to un-inhibit was having such a (desired?) effect on her.

She felt really, really happy and she felt like dancing. Dancing on that really, really big bed over there on the other side of the room. Although it was on the other side of the room. And that was too far away. Too, too far away. And maybe it would be better to dance right here. On this glorious spot. Dancing. Swirling, twirling, whirling, spinning, spinning, dizzy, whizzy, dizzy…

"Whoa," she mumbled as she slipped and fell into a pair of familiar strong muscular arms. "You're like all buffed up."

"You're a bit of a pushover, Rory," Tristan whispered back into her ear.

"Am not," she denied hotly.

But wondered if consuming five pink jello shots could turn you into pink jelly. Because a flush was creeping over her face and neck as if someone had gotten out a bunch of crayons and begun coloring Rory in. Not to mention that her legs were shaky. Her whole body trembled as Tristan's fingers absently slid up and down the curve of her neck and shoulder. And her hands clutched his shoulders, trying to brace her unsteady legs. Although his legs seemed a little shaky too. Because he was also holding onto her. So maybe the whole world was quaking and the only thing that kept Rory and Tristan from falling was their grasp on one another.

It was an oddly comforting thing – this tight, tangled embrace with Tristan. They had been jostled by several passer-bys but they had not let go of one another. Now they stood to one side. They were cornered by a potted palm to the left and a cream sofa chair to the right. Tristan was leaning against the peach-hued wallpaper and Rory was leaning against him.

Propped over Tristan with her breasts smooshed against the cotton of his white shirt, and Rory had an entrancing view of sweat that trailed from Tristan's forehead down to the sweeping line of his jaw. And so it wasn't just Rory's body that thought the room was hot. Overheated. Overcrowded. Too much furniture. Too many bodies. Room too small. Lack of circulation. Her skin was rosy, insides warm, and shouldn't the Plaza at least have decent air-conditioning?

"I'm not a pushover," she reiterated. "It's just too hot in here."

"It is, isn't it?" Tristan agreed as his fingers fiddled with the thin camisole strap that had slid down Rory's left shoulder.

"We should find your friend and ask him to turn up the air-conditioning."

"I don't know, are you sure you're not chilly? You've gone all goose-pimply."

Rory looked down at herself to see that Tristan had spoken truthfully. The skin on her arms were bumpy, with thin hairs standing up. And she was shivering. Although that could have been due to the quick caress of Tristan's thumb over her collarbone. Plus, she was jelly. Pink shivery jelly.

"It's hot in here," Rory reiterated. "And I think we should complain to the hotel about their abysmal air-conditioning. And I've got the whole complaint system figured out thanks to my mother. There's an entire process and procedure, you know. My mother's the manager of the Independence Inn in Stars Hollow, have I mentioned that? She has plans to own her own inn one day. My mother, that is. My mother. Lorelai Gilmore…" Rory's voice thinned out at the memory of her mother.

"Aren't you Lorelai Gilmore as well?" Tristan asked, and the camisole strap slipped further down her arm as he spoke.

The question startled Rory. She lifted her head so her face was mere inches away from Tristan's. And her eyes met his. Blue eyes connected. Blue eyes hazy with lust hidden want forbidden. Blue eyes questioning. And Rory's answer was: "Yes, I'm Lorelai Gilmore as well."

Then she kissed him.

Kissed him because she was Lorelai Gilmore (the Third) and she wanted to kiss a golden, beautiful, blonde boy like Tristan. And his mouth was soft and pink like jelly. He tasted sweet and salty and she liked the texture of him. She captured that wide bottom lip of Tristan's with a graze of teeth and a lick of tongue. Enjoyed his sharp rasp of in-taken breath and the way his arms tightened around her back and pulled her more closely in.

The best thing about kissing Tristan was that it was wonderfully familiar. He kissed like the forgotten dreams of yesterday. They were in a piano room. They were Romeo and Juliet. They were. Here.

Her mouth was hungry and needy and demanding as it sought his. He was so solid and real and Rory felt she could lose herself in him. Already she was melting. And she could feel him – _really feel him_ – hard and_ there_, through the layers of their clothes.

So it was shock when Tristan pushed Rory away.

"What the hell are you running from, Rory?" Tristan asked in a soft, cruel voice that threatened to break her with its gentle kindness.

She wanted to tell him, in a haughty voice, that her name was Lorelai Gilmore (the Third). Instead she settled for careless seduction, hand sneaking under his shirt so her nails scraped his side, and murmured, "Does it look like I'm running anywhere, Tristan? I'm not that little girl anymore, who goes dashing out of piano rooms in tears when a boy kisses her. Especially when the kiss was a nice one. A very nice one."

So see. See Rory. Not a little girl any longer. She could be daring and bold and alluring, just like her mother.

"Rory Gilmore, all grown up," he stated. But while his mouth was firm in its straight line position, Tristan's eyes danced with mirth that undercut his words.

His reaction was the last thing she expected or wanted. Rory could not help but pout and stomp her right foot in frustration, black heel eliciting a muted thump as it hit the plush carpet. Tristan began outright laughing at her actions.

"It's not funny," she informed him. "I can't even play the coquette, right. What kind of Lorelai Gilmore am I?"

Tears pricked her eyes and Rory attempted to furiously but surreptitiously wipe them away. The last thing she wanted was to reveal another weakness to this unsympathetic lump that was Tristan DuGrey.

Of course, he noticed.

And it didn't help that the side of her index finger and the back of her hand were now smudged black with watery eyeliner. She had made another mess in her attempt to play grown up.

Maybe, as the chuckles reverberating out of Tristan's chest were telling her, this was too much, too real for her. Maybe the puffy fairy dress and flimsy feather wings were her designated costumes in the stage play of life. Maybe she belonged in Stars Hollow, in the once upon time, in a book.

"Hey, hey, don't cry," Tristan told her. "I didn't mean to upset you. It's just…you don't need to do this. You don't need to be any kind of Lorelai Gilmore – picture image of your foremothers. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. All you need to be is Rory."

Trust me.

There were promises in those two little words. Promises that Rory wasn't sure that she knew how to keep. But somehow Rory thought she just might trust Tristan anyways. She wanted to tell him this but found her hand covering her mouth, stomach churning and skin waning to pallor.

"Bathroom," she managed to say.

Five minutes later and Tristan was kneeling beside her, stroking her hair in an oddly maternal way, as she bent over a toilet bowl.

Vomit pooled the inner porcelain of the toilet, chunks floating in the water, and Rory closed her eyes as the stench hit her. Her whole body hurt as she began to dry heave – her stomach already emptied of today's meals. The eight o'clock dinner – burger, fries, and Coke – gone. Something bitter and sour dribbled down her mouth – not quite saliva, not quite bile. She spat it out. Spat and spat even as a new layer of clear mucous coated her tongue and teeth. Another dry heave and then it was over.

Tristan pulled her up before sitting her down, on the edge of bathtub, and handing her a glass of water. Rory could hear the flush of the toilet as she gargled the water, rinsing her mouth of the regurgitated meals.

"Here, take this," Tristan said and handed her a toothbrush already lathered with toothpaste. "It's new," he added, when he noticed her hesitation. "Toiletries are provided for by the hotel."

The toothpaste was a little dry and chalky but it was minty fresh goodness and the bristles circled and zagged until Rory's mouth was filled with white foam. Spit and rinse. Another squirt of toothpaste. Brushing a second time because she still didn't feel clean enough. Spit and rinse again. Then she was splashing cold water over her face and with red veined eyes she could see Tristan in the back of the mirror watching her with another inscrutable expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," Rory said.

"What are you apologizing for?" Tristan asked. "Because if it was about just now and the whole nausea, I've had friends who've put me in far worse positions. Not to mention the numerous occasions when I've been the one to place myself in a far worse position than you are in now. So it doesn't matter. And if it's about the kiss beforehand…"

"No, no," she interrupted, "I'm just sorry."

The truth was Rory did not know what she was apologizing for; only knew the compulsion to say 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again.

She was glad when Tristan decided not to push the issue. She was tired, and all she wanted to do was crawl into a bed and sleep the night away. He seemed to know this without her speaking, and he half-carried her to another room with the least amount of people in it.

He easily shooed the occupants away with a piercing look and Rory wondered at the power that was his name: Tristan DuGrey. Tried to focus on the social hierarchy of this elite world that she barely knew about (even though it was another one of her birthrights) and not on the sly, knowing looks the departing boys and girls had cast their way.

Suddenly she was aware that they were alone in a room together. It was night and flickering fluorescence spilled through the naked glass of the windows and balcony door. They were two bodies – Tristan and Rory – bathed in darkness and color. Next door the music was thump, thump, thumping. And she could hear his shallow even breaths through the intermittent beats of the drums and bass.

He placed her on the bed and the sheets were soft beneath her and smelt faintly of beginnings that were unopened rosebuds. Tristan's hands were an odd mixture of supple and rough – she wondered if the coarse hardening skin was a result of eight months in military school. His fingers and nails brushed her stomach as he fiddled with the solitary metal button of her jeans. The button came undone easily and then came the sharp jangle of a zipper tugged down

_Trust me_,

Tristan had told Rory…and she did.

"You'll probably be more comfortable out of these jeans," he explained. "They don't look like the best things to go to sleep in."

Rory nodded her agreement but she wasn't sure if Tristan noticed. He was more intent on sliding the stiff blue cloth down the curve of her bottom. When his hands tapped the back of her thighs, she obediently lifted her hips so he could pull the jeans off her legs. And then Rory was sprawled on the luxurious bed wearing only the pink camisole and plain white cotton underwear.

Tristan didn't make some lewd comment. In fact he barely spared a glance at Rory. Instead he folded her jeans, neatly and precisely, and placed them on a nearby chair. He tucked her into the bed, brushed some stray blue hairs off her face, and left the room

Lying in bed, Rory tried not to think about how deliberately non-sexual, asexual, impartial Tristan had been. Tried not to think about how gentle Tristan's touch was as he smoothed the covers over her. And how gentle he could have been if he had touched her in so many other places. Tried not to imagine what it would be like if his hand had inched down. And Rory's eyes fluttered shut as warmth spread across her body and she tried not to dream about Tristan.

* * *

Rory wasn't sure if it was the squeak of the door that woke her. However, she was now awake, and bleary eyed she stared at the outline of blonde that had just entered the room. The blonde was tall and male, with short hair, lean, muscular frame, and Rory thought it might be Tristan although she couldn't be sure.

He stood at the edge of the room, back turned to her, as he stared out to the balcony. He slid the glass doors to the balcony open, just far enough so a cool breeze crept through the gap. The heavy embroidered curtains made the slightest rustle of movement as the breeze hit the room. He did not seem to be aware of her presence – too caught up in whatever made his broad shoulders tense.

Sunlight danced over him, bathing in glowing shadows and there was something painfully beautiful about watching the boy. He looked like _the_ fallen angel in this fallen city.

"Tristan?" she groaned as she tried to sit up on the bed. The blankets fell to her waist revealing her bare shoulders and arms and a rumpled pink camisole that dipped into cleavage.

The boy stiffened perceptively at the sound of Rory's voice. It was only a millisecond of rigid shoulders, back and legs, but it was enough confirmation that he had not known of Rory's presence in the room. Still, he was casual and flippant when he turned to speak to her.

"Not quite," the blonde denied as he stepped out of the shadows.

She realized then that the blonde-haired boy wasn't Tristan. His eyes were small, like narrow slits of darkness; and nothing like the piercing lines of Tristan's blue. His eyes were liquid and lackadaisical and didn't carry the indigo trace of volatility and vulnerability that dyed Tristan. There was something inherently careless about this boy that contradicted his earlier moment of meditation. She felt the blush of embarrassment and self-consciousness overcome her, at having woken up to this stranger. For unknowingly intruding on what must have been a private and intimate moment for the boy.

Rory could feel the hot intensity of the boy as he now took the time to inspect her. His gaze penetrated her, as his dark, dark eyes traveled from her face to the dip in Rory's pink camisole. Hastily she bunched the blankets over her slight frame and burrowed down into the bed.

"Now, now, no need to play shy," the boy said. "After all, you are one of DuGrey's girls. Besides, I've already seen everything there is to see thanks to your little peek show there."

Peek show? Rory's quizzical frown followed the trail of the boy's gaze. It led her to the pale expanse of her right leg that had skidded out of cover in Rory's haste to pull the blankets over her chest. Furiously she darted her right leg back under the covers. She glared at the blonde as her hands fussed with bed hair in a concerted effort to retain some semblance of decorum.

In a tight, prim and proper voice, Rory said, "I'm not one of Tristan's girls."

"Of course you're not," he said and he was mocking, disbelieving.

He was amused by her actions, her words, her denial. His mouth was positioned in a familiar smirk – side of the mouth twisted, bottom lip protruding, top lip in a thin crooked line – and Rory wondered if all little rich boys were taught that same smile.

"I'm not," she reiterated forcefully. "I'm nobody's girl."

"So you're fair game?" the blonde leered.

"That's not what I meant!"

The boy grinned, "I know. So there's no need for you to launch into some feminist diatribe, as amusing and entertaining as it would be. And don't worry, I wasn't seriously hitting on you. Because as tempting as you may be, I don't chase after girls who belong to my friends. And certainly not one of DuGrey's girls."

Rory gaped at the blonde, amazed at his audacity. She spluttered and made a jabbing, stabbing motion at him only to stop because the blankets had crumpled to the side revealing another glimpse of her half-naked form.

"Nice," the boy commented as he walked out of the room. "I have to go now, there's still more of a party waiting. But it's been really enjoyable. A real pleasure, I might even go as far to say. Maybe we'll meet again."

"I hope I never see your ugly face again," Rory shouted lamely to the closing door, "and I'm not one of Tristan's girls! I don't even like him!"

Huffing and incensed, Rory imagined that all little rich boys must have attended a charm school at the age of three where they practiced that common smirk and cultivated a cocky, aggravating manner.

Still, the boy had parted with one piece of useful information: the party was still going on. Glancing at the digital clock blinking on the armoire, she saw that it was way past morning – 1:23pm to be exact. Friday had come and gone and half of Saturday had crept by.

Her stomach grumbled and she got out of bed. Carefully she made the bed then grabbed the jeans neatly folded on the nearby chair. She headed to the ensuite and found the hotel provided toiletries – just like Tristan said – and brushed her teeth and hair and re-dressed. Then Rory left the room in search of coffee, food and Jess.

Or Tristan.

Although Rory wasn't sure she was ready to see Tristan again. Not when the memory of a kiss – nebulous but known – endangered the frontiers of her mind.

And what did the kiss mean?

All Rory knew was that she wasn't Tristan DuGrey's girl, no matter what the blonde stranger had said. She wasn't even sure if she liked him half of the time. Besides, she already had a boyfriend…maybe. No, the truth was that Rory did not know anything. Although her rumbling, grumbling tummy did know that she was hungry.

Brunch was two cups of coffee, crab soufflés and mini fruit flans. The food was easy to find. Servers circulated the rooms with their trays of rich delicacies and a steady array of drinks. Cocktails, beer and the harder stuff (that Jess had demanded) were still being poured down throats, with the empty glasses sloppily discarded on trays, chairs, armories, and conveniently placed potted palms.

The rooms were a disconcerting mix of the sleeping and the awake. The drained stillness of boys and girls sprawled over any space and the crazy energy of the boys and girls still drinking, dancing, talking, kissing. She felt like an outsider, carefully navigating this landscape of people – almost like a museum visitor watching, observing, critiquing her displayed surroundings. But she was not part of this. Could not be.

In the dullness of the afternoon light, she tried to find the familiar in the brown hair of Jess Mariano. Shifting through the chaos that threatened her visual perceptions, Rory located Jess. But it seemed that the party had left its mark on him. He seemed cold and removed, with his back turned to her and a glass of amber liquid in his hand and a cigar dangling from his fingers. While he didn't look like he belonged – his clothes too ill-fitting, his face too lined by labor and scarred by seventeen damaged years – Jess somehow fitted in. Chatting to three girls and another boy, sipping his drink, swinging his arm around a red-head and bending low to breathe in the girl's ear and Jess was another copy of Tristan and the boy Rory had encountered earlier.

He seemed not happy but content in this world that was not Stars Hollow. Not Rory. And she felt a pang of unexpected loss and dread. Like she was already losing him before she had even ever had a chance. Jess was slipping through her fingers and she could never get a grasp of him because there had always been something about him that was unobtainable. Illusive. And hardly there. And walled away.

It hit her then, in a moment of startling clarity, that Jess was running away. Would always be running away. And she couldn't be another Dean. So Rory pivoted away – blocking out this image of Jess – and ran in the other direction.

She ran out of the room and into another and another and another, banging doors in a flurry. She thought she might be looking for Tristan. He was enough of a semblance of familiarity in this strange, strange place. And despite her confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings in regards to him, Rory could remember clearly his kindness last night. So Rory flung a door open, too loudly, too hastily, and squeaked when she realized she had stumbled on a couple having sex. She made a fast retreat and decided to act with more caution and discretion in the future.

The next door Rory came upon was the ensuite to one of the rooms. This time she creaked the door open and found him then. In the hazy blur of panic, too many people, smoke, the memory of the jello shots she had gamely swallowed, drunken kisses and Jess, Rory thought she saw two Tristans. Blonde and golden and literally wrapped up in himself. Legs, arms, limbs so intricately entwined but unraveling too, now and then, in liquid seconds of touches and strokes. His strong jaws angled – one up, the other down – as tongues flickered out and mouths crashed together; and it was Tristan kissing his reflection in a pool of water. Or rather a spa to be exact.

Rory trembled as she watched. Hands clutching the door to steady her wobbly frame. She felt the creeping flush of embarrassment

(and something else –

that titillating lust of his narcissism)

sweep her body, and she lowered her eyes and cradled her chest with one arm as if to shield herself from it all.

But still she stood there watching. Her eyes followed the path of hands, trailing over broad muscular chests, dipping deeper into the water and into hidden forbidden territory. Water lapped the salt of their skin in splashing waves. They moved in plunging grace. One boy braced against the white of the spa, hands clenched against the cream tiles, as the other scattered kisses from the jaw line to the base of the neck.

The kissing boy looked up with dark hungry slits for eyes and, then, Rory knew that this was not a dream. This was not two Tristans, brought out from some swell of her dim imaginings. This was Tristan and his friend. The stranger she had woken up to. And he saw her and smirked. Leaned even closer in to Tristan and whispered into his ear. Then the boys flipped positions and Tristan was staring at her.

She couldn't read into the depths of his blue, blue eyes. They were closed to her now. But Rory thought he was trying to tell her something, to make a point, when he swooped in and crashed his mouth against the other boy's. A squirming gush of something filled Rory at his actions and she could feel the heat rise to her cheeks. She wanted to leave, should have left a long time ago, and made a move to do so but was stopped by the sound of Tristan's voice.

"Leaving so soon, _Mary_?" he asked.

And this Tristan didn't have the kindness of the boy last night. Nor the light but annoying tease of the boy eight months ago in Chilton. This Tristan was all hardness and harshness and eight months in military school had turned him to an unfeeling solider. It was strange too: his use of the old nickname. He had called her 'Rory' all day and all night on Friday, only making a cursory reference to it in the bookstore. Now he used the epithetic 'Mary' and it was angry and hurtful. He was angry and hurtful.

"Yes," she muttered but her feet were rooted in the floor.

"Well, by all means, leave. After all that's what you're good at: running away. Always running away, poor little Mary."

She didn't know how to answer the accusation that seemed too true. So she fulfilled his prophecy and left, wearing 'Mary' like a bright scarlet letter that overwhelmed her body, her face, her hair.

Out of the room and into the corridor, stabbing the elevator buttons, and Rory realized she couldn't just leave. Not without Jess – he was her transportation. But she wasn't ready to face Jess either. The ding of the elevator ready to go down echoed through the corridor but Rory ignored it. Slumped against the marbled walls, Rory contemplated her options. Perhaps she could call her mother. Perhaps she could take a bus back home to Stars Hollow. Eyes closed, breath in short shallow wheezes that weren't quite sobs, and she felt so completely fatigued with lost.

"I'm surprised you're not out of the district by now."

Rory's eyes fluttered at the sound of that cruelly effective voice of Tristan's. He stalked over to her and pressed his body against hers so she was trapped between the wall and him. He was only wearing a pair of jeans and his skin was still wet from the spa. Astonishingly the impulse to push him away never came. Instead Rory's hands draped the curvature of his back and his skin was smooth, supple, slick against the tips of her fingers.

"I hate you," she told him. "Why do you have to be so mean?"

"I know you hate me. You've informed enough people of that fact on various occasions. As for being mean, haven't you heard the saying: cruel to be kind, Mary dearest?" he answered her.

"I thought you liked girls!" Rory accused – it was the only thing she could think of saying.

"I do."

"Then what was that, back there?"

"Kissing," Tristan smirked, just liked the other blonde. "Haven't you seen two people kissing before? Didn't realize you were so naïve, Mary."

"I'm not and stop calling me that. You haven't called me that all weekend, there's no need to start now."

"By the way you're acting, I'd say there's a great need. A kiss is just a kiss, Mary. Haven't you ever kissed someone just because? Just because you needed to? Just because you wanted to?"

"No," she denied.

"Liar," he laid the charge against her. "Liar, liar, pants on fire. What was last night then? You let me get you out of your pants, last night."

"That was different! It was just so I wouldn't have to sleep in those jeans."

"Really? I think if I hadn't been so much of a gentleman, we might have gone so much further than that and you would have let me. After all, you were the one who kissed me. And I think it's time I returned the favor."

Then he kissed her.

He was edges and teeth and she was falling, falling, falling but he caught her. Placed two hands around her waist and lifted her up and she wound her arms around his neck and held on tight. Now the kiss was a new perspective. It was angles of the periphery as his tongue swept the inner hollows of her mouth. She moaned and tangled her legs with Tristan's. She was crying too, but this time Tristan didn't stop kissing her and apologize. Instead he kissed her with the unyielding firmness of his mouth. And she couldn't escape. Couldn't run away. And she didn't want to.

"You're not like me. This isn't you," he gasped, breaking contact for a second. Then he reeled her back in with the wrench of blue, blue hair.

Rory dissolved with Tristan's touch. His hands had slipped under the pink camisole, squeezing her breasts, running fingers down her ribs as if he was taking account of her. She let him count her – to find all the scattered dots and pixels that made the image of Rory.

He unbuttoned her jeans again and there was nothing maternal about his actions now. They were in a corridor and people were still piling in and out of rooms and Rory did not care. Only cared that Tristan's thumb and index finger were fiddling with the snap of elastic and scrap of cotton that stitched together her white panties. She arched her hips to aid his movements and she had stopped crying a long, long time ago although her face was still damp with the memory of tears. His fingers swept under and in, and he was finally touching her. There. Everywhere. Inside. And everything was gelling together. Dots, pixels and molecules bonding to form Rory.

She was all warmth and tightness and she could feel his fingers pushing into her, taking hold. Her nails dug into his back, her mouth biting his shoulder while he drove everything away but the feel of him. A flick, a slide, a thrust, a drag of fingers and they were in motion. She was no longer held on pause but fast forwarding towards the world. And as Tristan's ministrations grew faster, more insistent, and into the nub of her, Rory knew she would not shatter.

She came with the sensation of Tristan having delved into her and found something in the old and new Rory that was worth keeping. He knew her better than she knew herself. And finally the image was clear and connected. There was no separation, no other Rory, no other Tristan – there never had been.

Pulling his fingers out of her, zipping her jeans up and releasing his hold on her and Tristan smelt musky and sweaty and just like a teenager. She smelt exactly the same way.

"Stop running," he told her and pressed gentle lips against her forehead.

He pulled away just as one of the room doors opened and Tristan's blonde friend stepped out, headed past them, and pressed the elevator button.

"We should go, Tristan," the blonde said. "Everyone's waiting."

"Okay, I'll be right there, Logan," Tristan replied. He turned to Rory then, palm caressing her cheek, and said, "I have to go. It was nice seeing you again. I had fun with you and Jess. Take care of yourselves."

A ding and a flash of light indicated that the lift had arrived. The blonde stepped into the lift and Tristan followed suit.

"Wait!" Rory called and Tristan stopped the elevator from closing with his hands, and his eyebrows were raised in question. "I don't hate you," she told him. "I've never hated you."

He smiled at her and answered, "I know." Then he let go of the elevator doors.

She watched him disappear as the metal closed: one arm raised, hand and fingers spread in a wave, and the smile still on his face. In this world there were no goodbyes. But Tristan DuGrey was gone with the flashing descent of hotel floor numbers.

Soon after Jess reappeared from out of one of the hotel room doors. And he was still the same Jess, despite Rory's earlier worries. He hadn't really changed. Or maybe, just maybe, she was the one who had changed.

"Hey," she greeted.

"Hey, back at you," he said. "I've been looking all over for you. I somehow lost track of you from the moment we first got here. Where did you disappear to?"

"Nowhere, everywhere," Rory answered, a little proud of her nonchalant shrug.

"Did you have fun? I know this wasn't really your thing, even though you were all about embracing change this weekend."

"You'll be surprised," she said, already a little wistful. "But yeah, I had fun."

Jess stared at her, surprised and scrutinizing, but he couldn't quite find the answers he was looking for. The moments with Tristan before, last night, this party, this was something that Rory wanted to keep for herself.

Finally he shrugged and asked, "Okay, so are you ready to go?"

"More than ready," she replied, "but there's just one little thing I have to do before we go. Could you go down to a pharmacy and buy a box of brown hair dye for me?"

* * *

Back in the car, on the highway, leaving New York, and there was still something about an open road, about an ever changing horizon and the possibility of going anywhere. Cars zoomed by with their headlights bright, and they would be back in Stars Hollow some time late on Saturday night. Later, when they were back in Stars Hollow, Rory would hug Jess in a tight, grateful embrace and feel the tingles of something beginning. Much, much later she would dance with Dean, with the string of their relationship at its tethers, and they would break up in front of the entire town. But on this Saturday night, she would enter her house and Lorelai would be on the couch with worry lines marring her sleeping face. Rory would place an extra blanket over her mother before heading to her room. Sunday morning, and Lorelai would find Rory snoring in her bed, looking like the child of ten with feather wings and caterpillar funerals. But Rory would be dreaming of the gaudy surrealness of New York and blue hair. A fast forwarded life. But now she was back home living on 'play', not 'pause'.

Back in the car, on the highway, heading to Stars Hollow, and there was something about the air against her face as Rory wound down the passenger window. They had left the Plaza and New York early in the evening, eager to get back on the road. So they had stopped for a quick dinner at a small but busy eatery off one of the exits on the highway. As Jess waited for their order, she had headed for the restrooms. When she had stared in the mirrors while washing her hands, Rory has been faced with the familiarity of a brown haired girl, and she had smiled. Now, leaning against the headrest as she twiddled with brown strands of hair, watching the stars beginning to glitter in the night's horizons, Rory felt found.

**(fin)**

* * *

**song**** list:**

pete yorn, _just another_ – rory in the bathroom

aimee mann, _save me_ - rory in the car with jess, driving to new york city

doves, _catch the sun_ – rory lost in new york city

snow patrol, _spitting games_ - rory and tristan in the bookstore

eisley, _memories_ - jess and tristan playing basketball

eisley, _golly sandra_ - rory talking to lorelai in a diner's restroom

rilo kiley, _portions for foxes_ - drunk rory kissing tristan

rilo kiley, _after hours_ - tristan putting rory to bed

the perishers, _trouble sleeping_ – rory going to sleep

placebo, _every you every me_ - rory and logan in the hotel room

franz ferdinand, _michael_ - tristan and logan in the spa

keane, _everybody's changing_ - rory as an outsider in the party

eisley, _telescope eyes_ - tristan kissing rory in the corridor

bell x1, _eve, the apple of my eye_ - tristan touching rory in the corridor

the cure, _pictures of you_ - tristan saying goodbye to rory

taking back sunday, _new american classic_ - rory and jess talking in the corridor

the raveonettes,_new york__ was great_ - rory and jess returning to stars hollow


End file.
